repairs of the Grove Street PATH station are scheduled to begin at the start of the year and that's going to mean some pain for commuters because trains will skip that station on weekends for the first half of the Year Jersey City officials are pressing the port authority to reconsider their plan before residents and businesses see their lives and livelihoods compromised senior political correspondent David Cruz has more on what's to come just as path weekend ridership was getting back to prepandemic level path service which most path Riders will tell you was woefully inadequate to begin with is facing another significant cutback that will impact commuters and local businesses beginning January 6 the Port Authority Rich runs the by state service will begin weekend closures at the much used Grove Street Station councilman James Solomon represents this part of the city this closure of Grove Street is a reversion to I think the old ways of doing things late notice to uh elected officials in the community about a huge change to to people's lives and uh at least to date no you know real solution to uh allow people to access Transit on weekends um that isn't going to take them you know 30 extra minutes out of their way the $16 million plan announced just before Christmas includes station painting replacing floor tiles restoring support columns and installing new lighting the work will close the westbound tracks to Journal Square and Newark on weekends from January to March and then from April to June to New York and Hoboken we've determined that getting that work done at Grove Street in a reasonable time frame will require partial closures over the weekend in order to maintain essential commuter service during the work week says the Port Authority Jimmy Lee is president of Safe Streets JC a bike and mass transit advocacy group he uses mass transit to travel traveled to and from New York Hoboken and Newark he says weekend service was terrible before during and now even after the pandemic path ridership on weekends unlike weekdays has recovered to nearly 100% of what it was pre- pandemic the problem with these closures is there two things one it's the complete opposite of what everybody wants you know everybody wants more frequent service the demand is there um and then second if you want people to go one stop further and then come back back if you have to wait 40 minutes to do it that's not reasonable Andy Edgecomb Works weekends as a tour guide in Manhattan she moved downtown to be closer to a PATH station the closure is going to add time and expense to her commute I'm going to have to account for at least an extra I don't know half hour 35 minutes uh to to just to get to work I could see the World Trade Center soon as I step out of my house and it's going to take me how that you know that much longer just just to get to that Point uh what if it's knowing how many uh dollars in Ubers that I have to take to get to exchange blaz uh in in some kind of weather where I can't ride my bike Solomon says the impact of small local business will be significant especially to restaurants and bars here that count on big weekends to stay in the black those businesses need the foot traffic they need tourists they need people who are coming to their restaurants to visit friends on weekends um so we need that access for the small businesses and then jobs right people work on the weekends uh people need to get to their jobs both at in downtown Jersey City and then throughout the region switching the work to weekday overnights adding shuttle buses and single track service are some of the suggestions offered to the Port Authority none of which are planned at the moment Advocates and City officials say they're going to keep the pressure on the Port Authority but they better hurry up because they're running out of time closures are expected to start next weekend in Jersey City I'm David Cruz NJ Spotlight News [Music]